"But why would he think my blood would give him that?" Amber asked.

Will took the book from Rhiannon, flipping backward through the pages, skimming rapidly until he found the section that stopped him. What he read there made him sick to his stomach.

They'd been trying to kill the beautiful teenage girl with the piercing eyes ever since they'd had her here. Food laced with poison. Electric shock while she was under sedation. They'd even tried drowning her. Each time, she had revived.

"What?" Amber asked. "What is it, Will?"

He shook his head. "Later. We'll discuss it later."

Jameson arrived, carrying the still-unconscious woman in his arms. He'd removed her bonds and gag. "I'm not sure we can wake her," he said.

"You can. There's an antidote to the tranquilizer. They used it to rouse me when they needed me awake a couple of times," Amber said.

Rhiannon went to the shelves, then to the tiny refrigerator, knocking bottles and jars to the floor in her haste. "Here," she said, picking up a labeled syringe. "This must be it. It seems to be premeasured."

"Premeasured for a vampiric dose," Angelica said from the doorway. "I checked, there are some windows in some of the rooms, but all closed and locked from the inside. No other doors he could get to from that direction. The hall just ends."

Rhiannon brought the syringe to Jameson, glanced at him. He nodded. "Her heart's barely beating. She had a full dose of the tranquilizer, after all."

"Not a full one," Amber said. "They had to dilute it for me. And probably the antidote, as well. If that's premeasured, it was probably meant for me."

"Either way, it will kill her soon enough if we don't try," Will said. "Go ahead, it can't hurt."

Rhiannon injected the woman; then Jameson laid her down on the floor. Roland returned, looked around at them. "The guards outside haven't moved. I don't think they heard anything." "Good." Will set the notebook on a counter and bent over the woman on the floor. He tapped her cheeks. "Wake up. Wake up now, come on."

She moaned softly, moved her head from side to side. Finally her eyes fluttered, then opened, then opened wider when she saw them all standing around her.

"If you want to live, you'll tell me what I want to know," Will said.

She looked around frantically.

"There's no one left to help you. The others are dead, Stiles has escaped, and the guards outside don't even know we're in here. Now look, see the room you're in? The lab?"

She nodded.

"Stiles escaped from here, but not through any of the exits we can find. How did he do it?"

She blinked, foggy, unfocused, scared as h.e.l.l. "I don't...I can't..."

"Oh for pity sake, let's just eat her and be done with it!" Rhiannon knelt beside the woman, gripped a handful of her hair and tipped her head back, her eyes blazing and aimed at the tender arch of her neck.

"No!" the woman cried.

"Talk or die, mortal. It's of no consequence to me."

Will had to admit, the vampiress was good. She might have been able to make even him talk.

Nah.

The woman on the floor nodded rapidly. "There's... a hidden panel...in the wall." Her hand rose, gesturing weakly in the direction of the wall where the blood trail ended.

"How does it open?" Will asked.

"The...light switch."

Willem crossed the room and saw the ordinary-looking switch plate hidden in plain sight. He flipped the switch, and a section of the wall slid into itself, revealing a downward staircase.

Roland said, "That wasn't here before."

"Stiles...had it built," the woman said.

Suddenly there was a m.u.f.fled roar from somewhere in the distance, and the floor seemed to shake beneath them.

"What the h.e.l.l...?" Roland began.

Willem glanced at his watch. "s.h.i.t, it's the diversion. I set explosives on a timer at the far end of the other tunnel-not this one. The one Eric used as an emergency exit from the rooms below. Not enough to blow it open. I only had a small amount of explosive and-"

He was interrupted by a tinny sounding voice emanating from a small box mounted to the wall just inside the door.

"Stiles? There's been some kind of an explosion nearby. How do you want us to proceed?"

Willem glanced at the woman. "Explain. Fast."

"Intercoms," she said quickly. "They're s.p.a.ced throughout the house so we can communicate with the soldiers."

Will marched across the room to the intercom, depressed the b.u.t.ton, spoke into the box.

"Someone blew the sealed tunnel. The prisoners are escaping. Take all your men and go after them."

"But the house, sir."

"There are six of us in here, all armed. I think we can handle one little girl. You have your orders, soldier. Go."

"Yes, sir!"

Roland shook his head. ' 'Unbelievable. You sound nothing like Stiles."

"Not to you, maybe," Will said. "But to an ordinary mortal, most deep male voices sound pretty much the same over a cheap intercom. Besides, mercenary or not, a trained soldier doesn't stop to think too much when given a direct order. He just obeys."

A thud drew his gaze, and he turned to see Amber, standing over the book, which she'd just dropped to her feet. While they'd all been involved with the woman on the floor, she had, apparently, been reading about the things Stiles and his monsters had done to her.

"I...I don't understand," she whispered, her eyes welling. "They tried...they tried to kill me?"

Angelica gasped and wrapped her daughter in her arms. Jameson said, "What's in that book?"

"Take it with you," Will said. "There's no time now. It's not going to take those troops long to realize the tunnel is still sealed. Get out of here, all of you. Go find the vehicles. Close the door behind you and they'll never know anything happened."

"What about you?" Amber asked.

Jameson smoothed his daughter's hair. "He's going after Sarafina."

"Not alone, he isn't," Rhiannon said. She shot Roland a look. Roland only nodded once.

"There's no time to argue about this," Will began.

"Then don't," Rhiannon told him. "Angelica, Jameson, take Amber and go. Take the car and get out of here. We'll meet you at Eric and Tarn's when this is finished. Go."

"No." It was Amber who spoke. "We're wasting time. Sarafina saved my life, and I'm not going to go off safe and sound while she faces Stiles alone." She broke from her mother's embrace, gripped Will's hand and pulled him to the secret pa.s.sage.

"Stubborn little..." Rhiannon rolled her eyes; then she bent to haul the woman to her feet. "Go on," she told the others. "I'll tuck this one safely in a closet somewhere and catch up."

"Hurry, Rhiannon," Jameson said, even as he and Angelica moved into the dark pa.s.sageway where Will was still trying to dissuade Amber. "Those troops..."

Roland shook his head. "Not to worry, Jamey, I'll stay with her. Go on. Go with Will and help him save his woman."

Rhiannon turned back to the woman on the floor, "Just a few more questions, and then we'll be on our way."

The others ran down the tunnel, and Roland flipped the switch on the inside to close the entrance.

23.

"The tunnel leads where?" Rhiannon repeated, as she stuffed the woman into a closet.

"To the sea. Stiles keeps a boat there in case we need to escape in a hurry."

"A boat. One single boat?" She shook her head. "With room enough for all seven of you?"

The woman frowned as if she'd never considered that.

"Twit." Rhiannon closed the closet door and braced a chair under the outer k.n.o.b for good measure.

"They're going to be trapped out there," Rhiannon said. ' 'The soldiers will radio the house, and when no one answers, they'll come inside. The twit will tell them about the pa.s.sage if they don't already know."

Roland raced through the house in a haze of motion, peered out the front window. "They're already in sight on the road, heading back this way. We have to get out of here before they get back into position. Come on, the back way will give us the most time." He gripped Rhiannon's hand, and together they sped through the house and out the back. They made it to the iron fence just as several men came around the house and began retaking their positions. All those soldiers had to do was turn their heads....

Roland and Rhiannon jumped and cleared the fence, landing on the other side and quickly darting for cover. The soldiers heard the impact of their landing, looked toward the sound, and then, frowning, moved closer.

Rhiannon and Roland stayed very still in the brush while a pair of eagle-eyed troops walked up and down the fence, shining flashlight beams through it, searching.

Soft footfalls from behind drew Rhiannon's gaze, and she turned. Pandora padded up to her, almost soundless. Rhiannon wrapped her arms around the cat and nuzzled her face.

After a moment, the soldiers returned to their posts.

Rhiannon rose, cautious and quiet. "Come on. We have to find a boat."

They made their way along the road, back to where Will had hidden the Mercedes. Then they got in, Pandora sprawled on the back seat, and drove, as Rhiannon focused her mind on her need and followed the coastline. It wasn't long before they found a small marina, where a dozen or so boats seemed to make themselves at home. Some were dangling from contraptions with straps that held them up out of the water. Some were floating, tied loosely to a dock.

She stopped the car and they got out, walking toward the docks, Pandora close to Rhiannon's side.

The place was dead at this hour. Dawn was just over an hour away.

"I don't know the first thing about boats," Roland told her.

"Then we'll just have to take a driver along with us." She walked ahead of him, out onto the second dock, where a young man was tying off his boat. There wasn't another person within a mile of them.

"Excuse me, but I need you to take me somewhere in your boat," Rhiannon said.

The young man looked at her, and his eyes slid down her body in appreciation. Then they landed on the cat and widened. "Uh, look, lady, I don't know what this is about, but-"

"It's an emergency. A matter of life-and-death."

"Life-and-death?"

"Yes. Yours. Now get in the boat or experience what it feels like to be catnip."

At her cue, Pandora bared her teeth and emitted a dangerous growl.

"Okay, okay." The kid held up his hands and stepped into the boat, starting the motor.

Rhiannon got in, and her cat leaped in behind her. Roland untied the rope and climbed aboard last of all.

"Really, Rhiannon, the theatrics," he said. "You needn't have frightened the poor lad like that."

"He wasn't going to cooperate. I didn't have time to convince him."

The kid maneuvered the boat into the open water. Roland took the seat beside him, playing good vamp to Rhiannon's bad vamp, and pointing out the direction to take.

"Look, I'm glad to help you out, okay?" the boy said nervously. And he was just a boy.

Perhaps twenty. "I wouldn't refuse someone in trouble. I'm not that kind of guy. I just...that panther made me nervous."

"As well she should," Rhiannon said. She watched the coastline with her eyes. She also watched the boy until she understood how to operate the controls. When they got close, she said, "Can you swim to sh.o.r.e from here?"

The kid looked back at her and blinked. "Oh, come on. You're not gonna steal my boat.

Come on, please..."

"Young man," Roland said, "there are some soldiers just around this bend. Mercenaries, and they will start shooting at us if they see us. Now, unless you want to join us in ducking bullets..."

He scanned the sh.o.r.eline as he slowed the boat's speed to a near crawl, then let it float and, finally, sit idle in the water. "I don't see any-"

"Oh, for pity sake." Rhiannon snapped a finger.